Ravished by the Rake (15 page)

‘She is certainly all those things.’ Alistair continued to slot each fragile piece into place.

‘You did not like her gift?’

‘Very much; it is a work of art.’ Dr Melchett was silent. Alistair recognised the technique: keep quiet and eventually your opponent will start babbling. He considered playing the game and saying nothing, but that would be disrespectful to an old man. ‘Lady Perdita is not certain she likes me.’

‘Ah.’ The doctor fumbled in his pocket, brought out a snuffbox and offered it to Alistair. He didn’t use the stuff himself, but he recognised the friendly overture and took a pinch. ‘Difficult thing, love,’ Melchett mused.

‘What?’ A minute elephant went skidding out of his hand and across the table.

The doctor picked it up and peered at it. ‘Love. Old friends, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. Not lovers.’ He examined the last half-hour in painful detail and shrugged. ‘We were friends, as children, as much as one can be with a six-year age gap. We have apparently grown out of it.’

‘Love, lovers, in love, loving. So many shades of meaning to that word.’ Melchett sighed. ‘You were fond of her as a boy?’

‘She was a burr under my saddle,’ Alistair said evenly as he slid the box lid closed. ‘A pestilential little sister.’ He grinned reluctantly, remembering. ‘I suppose I was fond of her, yes.’

‘And you still want to protect her.’

No, he did not want to protect her—he wanted to make love to her for the rest of the voyage. ‘Lady Perdita requires protecting from herself, mainly,’ Alistair said as he put the box in his pocket. ‘But of course I keep an eye on her; she is the daughter of neighbours, after all.’

Melchett got to his feet. ‘That’s the ticket: neighbourliness. Now you know what it is, you won’t fret over it so much.’ He chuckled. ‘Nothing like a proper diagnosis for making one feel better. Don’t let me disturb you,’ he added as Alistair stood. ‘Have a pleasant birthday, my lord.’

What the devil was that about?
Neighbourliness? Diagnosis indeed! He didn’t need medical assistance to know that he was suffering from a mixture of exasperation and frustration. And just a tinge of guilt.

He wanted Dita: wanted her in bed, under him, around him. He wanted her screaming his name, wanted her begging him to make love to her again, and again. Alistair took a deep breath and thought longingly of cold rivers.

He also wanted to box her ears half the time. That was nothing new—he had spent most of his boyhood in that frame of mind, when she wasn’t making him laugh. Not that he had ever given in to the temptation: one did not strike a girl under any circumstances, however provoking she was.

Unfair that,
he thought with a slight smile.
Spanking, now
. The word brought a vision of Dita’s small, pert backside delightfully to mind.

Which brought him neatly back to the guilt. It was not an emotion he was much prone to. He certainly hadn’t felt guilt over leaving home. Since then he had done few things that caused him regret; all experience had some value. The problem was, he saw with a flash of clarity, he was not feeling guilty over wanting to make love to Dita, he was feeling guilty because he couldn’t be sorry about it.

Damn it.
It would be a good thing when she was home safely, despite her best efforts otherwise, and when she
was
home he hoped she would do her utmost to find a decent husband, although her list of requirements from this paragon probably meant the man did not exist. He could watch this while he searched for a wife—who
should be easy to identify when he met her. She would be precisely the opposite of Lady Perdita Brooke in every particular.

‘If I never see St Helena again it will be too soon,’ Mrs Bastable remarked as the island vanished over the horizon. ‘A more disagreeable place I cannot imagine, and the food was dreadful.’

‘There’s Ascension next; we can pick up some turtles and have splendid soup,’ Alistair remarked from his position on the rail, surrounded by a group of ladies, amongst whom the elder Miss Whyton was prominent. ‘And from there, if we have good fortune, perhaps only another ten weeks sailing.’

‘The Equator soon,’ Callum Chatterton added. ‘But no sport to be had there—we got everyone who had never crossed before on the way out from Madras.’

Alistair ducked under the sailcloth and sat down on one of the chairs under the awning that sheltered Dita, Averil and Mrs Bastable. He chose one opposite her and not the vacant one by her side, much to her relief. Then she realised that from where he was sitting he could meet her eyes. He seemed intent on doing just that. She held the amber gaze and her breath hitched, shortened, as his lids drooped sensually and the colour seemed to darken.

‘How are you entertaining yourselves?’ he asked, his tone at variance with the messages his eyes were sending. ‘I find I am growing blasé about flying fish and whales.’

‘I still have needlework,’ Averil said. ‘There is all the
table linen for my trousseau. The light on deck is so good it makes doing white-work monograms very easy.’

‘I intend to carry on reading,’ Dita said. ‘Novels,’ she added, daring him to comment.

‘Sensation novels?’ Alistair enquired, ignoring her challenging look.

‘Of course. I packed the most lurid novels I could find and I am devouring them shamelessly. I have an ambition to write one and I am reviewing plots to see what has not been covered. Perhaps I shall become an eccentric spinster novelist.’

‘How about a story set on a pirate ship?’ Alistair suggested, his expression so bland she could not tell if he was teasing her or not.

‘Oh, yes, what a wonderful idea, and quite fresh, I think.’ Dita cast round their little group for inspiration. ‘My heroine—who will look just like Miss Heydon—has been carried on board by the villain—a tall, dark, dastardly character with a scar on his cheek—’ Alistair raised one eyebrow, which she ignored ‘—who has chained the hero in the foul bilges.’

‘How is she going to escape his evil intent?’ Averil asked, missing this byplay.

‘The hero escapes, but, single-handed, even he cannot overpower the villain,’ Dita said, improvising wildly. ‘So he must haunt the ship, stepping in only to save her at critical moments.

‘There will be storms, sea monsters, desert islands, the villain’s lascivious attempts upon the fair heroine’s virtue.’

‘Perhaps she flees him and climbs into the rigging?’ Alistair suggested. ‘And he climbs after her and forces
her down to the deck before pressing his foul attentions upon her in the cuddy.’

‘It sounds highly improbable,’ Dita said frigidly. ‘Although the foul attentions sound … characteristic.’

‘No, it’s brilliant,’ Callum contradicted. ‘It will make a perfect cliffhanger. She hits him with the soup ladle and escapes to barricade herself in her cabin.’

‘I was thinking of a carving knife,’ Dita said with a tight smile at Alistair, who smiled back in a way that had the hair standing up on the back of her neck.
A hunting smile …

‘It sounds wonderful,’ Averil said, breathless with laughter as she dabbed at her eyes with the napkin she was working on. ‘You must write it, Lady Perdita.’

‘In instalments,’ Daniel added. ‘And read one every evening. We will all contribute plot ideas as the story develops and take on roles. The hero is, of course, so perfect that none of us can approach him, but I see myself as the flawed, but ultimately noble first lieutenant of the ship, Trueheart. He loves the heroine from afar, knowing he is unworthy, but will redeem himself by the sacrifice of his life for her in about episode sixty-three.’

‘Very well,’ Dita agreed. ‘I will do it. It will be a three-volume epic, I can see.’

The novel proved to be an absorbing occupation. Averil patiently embroidered the corners of innumerable handkerchiefs and table napkins and Dita wrote while they sat under their awning in the heat.

By the time they crossed the Equator Averil had moved on to pillow cases, the passengers, sustained by
turtle soup, began to think hopefully of home and Dita had filled pages of her notebook.

Every afternoon after dinner the passengers retreated to their cabins out of the sun to recruit their strength before supper. Dita found that a difficult routine to settle to, despite having followed it for a year in India. Here, on the ship, she was too restless to lie dozing in her canvas box. And for some reason the restlessness increased the longer she was on board.

She was not afraid of her family’s reaction when she got home, she decided—that was not what was disturbing her. Papa would still be angry with her—that was only to be expected, for he had taken her elopement hard—but Mama and her brothers and sisters would welcome her with open arms. Nor was it apprehension about her reception in society; she was ready to do battle over that.

No, something else was making her feel edgy and restless and faintly apprehensive in a not unpleasant kind of way, and she very much feared it was Alistair. The memory of their lovemaking on Christmas Eve should have served as a constant warning, she told herself. Instead it simply reminded her how much she wanted his kisses and his caresses. And Alistair, maddening man, had not tried to lay a finger on her, so she could not even make herself feel better by spurning him.

Had he turned over a new leaf and decided on celibacy? He was not flirting with anyone else; she knew that because she watched him covertly. Or was he deliberately tantalising her by apparent indifference? If so, he was most certainly succeeding.

Her only outlet had become the novel. The plot became
more and more fantastical, the perils of Angelica, the fragile yet spirited heroine, became more extreme, the impossibly noble, handsome and courageous hero suffered countless trials to protect her and the saturnine villain became more sinister, more amorous, and, unfortunately, more exciting.

Three days after they crossed the Equator, with the Cape Verde Islands their next landfall, Dita found herself alone in the canvas shelter on deck. A sailor adjusted the sailcloth to create a shady cave and she settled back on the daybed the ship’s carpenter had made and looked out between the wings of the shelter to the rail and then open, empty sea.

She lay for a while, lulled by the motion of the ship, the blue, unending water, the warmth on her body. Then, insidiously, the warmth became heat and the familiar ache and need and she shifted restlessly and reached for her notebook and pencil.

The roll of the ship sent the little book sliding away and she sat up and scrambled to the end of the daybed to reach for it. ‘Bother the thing!’

A shadow fell over the book as Alistair appeared and stooped to pick it up. ‘Ah, the
Adventures of Angelica.’
When she tried to twitch it from his fingers he sat down on the end of the daybed, held it just out of her reach and opened it.

‘Give it back, if you please.’ It was hard to sound dignified when she was curled up with her slippers kicked off, her petticoats rumpled about her calves and no hat on. Dita scrambled back towards the head of the daybed, pulled her skirts down and held out one hand.

‘But I want to read it.’ He flipped to the end and read while Dita pressed her lips together and folded her hands in her lap. She was not going to tussle for it. ‘Now, let’s see. So, Angelica has escaped on to the desert island and Baron Blackstone is pursuing her, so close that she can hear his panting breaths behind her as she flees across the sand towards the scanty shelter of the palm trees. How is she going to escape this time?’

‘The gallant de Blancheville has sawn his way through the latest lot of shackles and is rushing to her rescue,’ Dita said with as much dignity as the ludicrous plot would allow her.

‘I cannot imagine why Blackstone hasn’t thrown him overboard to the sharks,’ Alistair commented. He leaned back, one hand on the far edge of the daybed, his body turned towards her, the picture of elegant indolence. ‘I would have done so about ten chapters back. Think of the saving in shackles.’

‘Villains never do the sensible thing,’ Dita retorted. ‘And if I kill off the hero, that’s the end of the book. With you as captain of this ship the drama would be over on page three; de Blancheville would have walked the plank and poor Angelina would have thrown herself overboard in despair.’

He curled a lip. ‘The man’s prosy and disposable. Have her falling for Blackstone. Think of the fun they could have on a desert island.’

‘I really wouldn’t—Alistair! That is my ankle!’

‘And a very pretty one it is, too. Has your chaperon never told you it is fast to shed your shoes in public?’ He ran his hand over the arch of her foot, then curled his
fingers round it and held tight when she jerked it back. ‘Relax.’

‘Relax—with your hand under my skirts?’

‘Don’t you like this?’ His thumb was stroking the top of the arch of her foot while his fingers brushed tickling caresses underneath. It was disturbingly reminiscent of the way he had caressed her more intimately.

‘I’ll scream.’

‘No, you won’t.’ He slid off the daybed, knelt beside it, bent and lifted her foot. ‘Pretty toes, too.’

‘You can’t see my toes,’ she said in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone, which became a muffled shriek when he began to suck them through her stocking. ‘Stop it! ‘

In answer his hand slid up her leg to her knee, tweaked the garter and began to pull down her stocking.

‘Alistair, stop that this minute… . Oh …’ Her stocking was off, her toes were in his mouth and he was sucking and licking each one with intense concentration. It was wonderful. It was outrageous and she should stop him. But she couldn’t, Dita thought as she flopped back inelegantly on to the pile of bolsters, not without creating the most dreadful scene by struggling.

Why having her toes sucked should be so inflammatory, she could not imagine. And Alistair must enjoy doing it, although she could not see his face, only his dark head bent over her foot as he sucked her big toe fully into his mouth.
‘Aah …’

He released her and went back to stroking her instep and ankle. ‘Tell me the story.’

‘How can I concentrate when you are—?’

‘Do you want me to stop?’ He glanced sideways, his eyes full of wicked mischief.